You need to have a look at Freddie, B.B. and Albert King for that…
1990`s “In the Line of Fire” is a also a great later album.
Tag Archives: albert king
Here`s English guitarist Robin Trower, formerly of Procul Harem, playing the title track from his 1974 classic rock album Bridge of Sighs. Robin plays his own signature stratocaster which is an EXACT version of the one you can buy through Fender, although, when playing live Robin tunes his guitar a full step down, to a DGCFAD tuning. Robin`s tone is achieved through playing into several Marshall heads at high, high volume. Hendrix comparisons have plagued Trowers work but anyone who knows their onions will notice that Hendrix` rhythmic legacy from his days playing with Curtis Knight and Little Richard for example is not present in the fluid legato and unhurried melodic content of Robin Trower`s playing.
You need to have a look at Freddie, B.B. and Albert King for that…
1990`s “In the Line of Fire” is a also a great later album.
You need to have a look at Freddie, B.B. and Albert King for that…
1990`s “In the Line of Fire” is a also a great later album.
Leaping about Ten years forward from the last post today sees us focusing upon the purely British talents of Mick Taylor and Keith Richards, Peter Green and Danny Kirwan, and Paul Kossoff. What is it that`s in the British Water? It must be Mud, but, I don`t know - I`ve been drinking it for most of my life and…
Before Fleetwood Mac turned into a prog-rock-pop outfit they produced some awesome guitar based rock and blues music and I recommend having a listen to their album “Then Play On” from 1969. The band featured the combined and unmistakenly powerful guitar talents of Danny Kirwan and Peter Green.
Green`s unique tone from reversed pick up magnets in his neck position pick up combined with his distinctive hummingbird vibrato and Kirwan`s tremelo, sense of melody and song based approach to composition certainly gave Fleetwood Mac something haunting.
Compare this with the characteristically fragile power and awesome vibrato and unique phrasing of Paul Kossoff with Free featuring Paul Rodgers – probably the best white voice in rock music. With a guitar in his hands Paul Kossoff has got it all and you can hear inspired timing in free-fall, nuanced accents, soaring string bending (in reminiscence of Hendrix, and Albert, B.B., & Freddie King too…), razor tones and birdflight melodics.
Finally have a listen to another understated and under-rated blues guitar giant in the form of the melodically and stylistically incandescent Mick Taylor with the Stones who seems to combine a sense of timing, phrasing, and melody in a way aeons beyond the usual; fluid, stylistically overloaded, leagues of tone, emotional, exciting, uncomplicated and thoroughly meaningful all within the context of the song structure. Mesmerising. It`s Bobby Keys on sax`.
| Keith Richards & Mick Taylor 1972 | Danny Kirwan & Peter Green `69 | Paul Rogers & Paul Kossoff `70 |
Cheers
Hair metal poodles and spandex clad rockers beware..!
There are ways to burn on the guitar that far surpass the egocentric simplicity and slavery to technique of that whole guitar school, speed focused, sweep picking, notes for notes sake playing that occurs in a vacuum devoid of taste, subtlety and emotion. A while back I posted here about tasty solos and in a way all of these are shredders in the following sense:
The guitar as an instrument is emotive, not mechanical, slick or polished unless it needs to be as part of the expression – e.g. a Freddie King Lick, an Albert King bend, a Clapton phrase, the Leslie West tone, Hendrix` sustain etcetera…..What makes these kinds of players special is the integrity and honesty in the ability of their playing to communicate something very human and powerful – emotion, character, experience and individuality.
it`s a combination of melody or lack thereof, timing, timbre, attack, tone, technique and more; imperfection, humanity, frailty, strength, ambition, fear and glory. It`s ALL FEEL playing the guitar, nothing else, especially if you`ve a great song to do it with! J.J. Cale is a great example of a musician whose delivery, content, songwriting and even message seems to consist almost entirely of feel, and feel alone – incredible. Then again someone like Paul Gilbert really, really cooks up storm! Find what you like and mix it all together.
SO, it IS up to you entirely – there is an entire genre of speed/technique worthy of admiration ranging from neo-classicists such as Yngwie Malmsteen or Gary Moore (try the album After the War) – who has incidentally “reinvented” himself as a blues player – to the insane dexterity and sweep picking of Batio below….one day it`ll be so fast you can’t even hear it!! Mark Knpfler always seemed fast enough for me….
But if you feel good shredding, get down to it and have look at the video below especially between 1.40 minutes and 2.20 minutes. Michael Angelo Batio fast, very, very fast; or J.J.Cale…very, very slow…..mmmm
Cheers,
Jake Edwards
Right on PEOPLE!!
While I clean up my strat (and mess about restringing) lets have a look at the soul – technique – equipment thing.
Consider the John Butler Trio for example; how many fellas do you know who use an acoustic twelve string with a wah wah and a gravel box? It certainly makes for a unique sound. Throw in a stand up bass and a drummer with a really frantic percussive style and you have a sound chock full of grit and character: earthy, organic, rootsy and soulful with plenty of bite too. What a combination.
You may use use an old suitcase for a kick drum, the grill for an oven as percussion or modify your instrument yourself.
Roland Kirk, who named himself after a series of dream-visions, and plays several reed or home made breath instruments simultaneously fuses ragtime, free jazz, hard bop, and musique concrete with early electronics.
Consider David Bowie`s career in oddity or Tom Waits scarecrow-drifter, hobo junkstore, down and out, rag and bone man blues, achingly sentimental ballads, and grotesque, vaudevillean strangeitude. Jimi Hendrix reinvented feedback on Machine Gun, fused Baudelaire with Dylan on Bold as Love and was last seen on Nine to the Universe anticipating Miles Davis.
Carlo Gesualdo the Italian music composer, lutenist and nobleman of the late Renaissance was famous for his intensely expressive madrigals and bizarre chromaticism. Lutenist John Dowland might be the melancholy blues master you need to augment your Robert Johnson, Freddie, B.B. and Albert King collection.
Captain Beefheart`s shifting time signatures, surreal linguistic complexities combined with Dr. Zeuss like syllogistics in a gritty, avante-garde, psychedelic blues hyperspace inhabited by the drunken ghost of Howling Wolf drinking absinthe from Miles Davis` open skull.
Beefheart was constantly prototyping in a Godinesque way. (That`s Seth Godin)
If you want to keep it real, consider yourself in beta.
Almost everyone you can think of who has made an impact had something different, something unique. Look for it in your own music. Look for it in your self. Make it your own – commercial viability is never a useful litmus test for success or achievement – always do what you want and if somebody likes it, great.
And above all IGNORE EVERYBODY.
- Instruments over computers.
- Instruments over computers.
- Instruments over computers.
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